


I just want this

by evilythedwarf



Series: Emma and Bandit!Regina in the Enchanted Forest [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Enchanted Forest, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 21:53:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7658050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilythedwarf/pseuds/evilythedwarf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Emma freaks out and Regina is very chill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I just want this

Emma read the book once, and she immediately wished she hadn’t.

Emma read the book, and she felt sick to her stomach because of all the things it didn’t say, because she could read, she learned her abc’s when she was five years old, but she could also read between the lines and when she was done, when she finally put it down, she wanted to hurl it across the room. She wanted to find who ever had written it and punch him in the face.

And she did, in the end, but now she wishes she had kicked him in the balls as well.

Because she found Henry’s battered paperback, and she thought, how bad could it get, really? And so she read it, and she really, really shouldn’t have because now she wants to punch someone in the face again and the only people around are her son and his mother and that’s about the only two people in the world, in this world, who don’t deserve it.

And she’s about to throw the damn thing to the fire, because that’s where it belongs, really, when Henry stops her with a horrified “Ma!” and he doesn’t understand, he will never understand, because he is no less innocent at 12 than he was at 10, and that’s Regina, that’s all Regina. She made sure that he didn’t have to know about the ugliness of the world.

Emma gives him back his book, and she walks towards the river where Regina is… all kinds of naked. Regina is soaking in the river, and even though Emma can only see her from the shoulders up, she _knows_. And she can’t help but stare at the pale lines that peek over Regina’s right shoulder, and she has to look away, she has to turn back and walk away, and she has to find a way to stop all those words she didn’t read from painting those ugly, ugly pictures in her head.

They have to find a way. They have to go back to the real world because everything is wrong and she’s falling in love with a woman that doesn’t really exist and this is only going to end in tears. For everyone involved.

That night, after Henry falls asleep, because he always falls asleep as soon as his mothers kiss him goodnight, Regina asks her what’s wrong. In her own, very direct way.

“What the hell is wrong with you Emma?”

“We need to go back,” she replies.

“We’re going north,” Regina says firmly. “We need to put as much distance between us and the Queen as we-”

“No. We need to go back. To our world. To Storybrooke.”

Regina rolls her eyes. Of course she rolls her eyes. She oscillates between amusement and extreme derision whenever the topic is brought up, and Emma is not entirely sure she believes them, even now.

“Are you that unhappy?” she asks.

“What? No. It’s not that. But we need to go back Regina. All of us.”

“It’s the book, isn’t it?” she asks angrily. “I saw you reading the book.”

And Emma can’t say it’s not, because she sure as hell wasn’t this freaked out 2 days ago, even if she probably should have been.

“Henry said I was the Evil Queen. I don’t see how that’s any better.”

“It’s not,” she says. “It’s really, really not. But at least your choices were your own.”

Regina chuckles bitterly.

“My choices have always been my own, Emma.”

“But don’t you want more?” she asks, shifting closer to her, looking into her eyes.

“I just want this,” Regina says, resting her forehead against hers.


End file.
